My thoughts on hunting and pollution

I'm on a good number of email lists for petitions, and I get a good number related to protecting animals.  I definitely support protecting wildlife.  What is depressing me is how much of the threat against these animals is from stupid things like hunting, or stupider things like corporate greed.

Let me start off with saying: I am a fervent supporter of gun rights and our second amendment in the United States.  I get annoyed at people who think that limiting our freedoms further will somehow result in us being safer.  Hopefully the logic there is obvious to you because that could take a whole other essay.  I'm just trying to make clear that I support citizens owning guns.

And I even tentatively support hunting... for food.  I still eat meat, so I'd be a hypocrite if I said it was okay to eat butchered animals but not hunted animals.  So long as the hunter is capable of killing the animal quickly so it doesn't suffer, and so long as the animal isn't of an endangered species, I'm okay with hunters hunting for food.

But sport hunting...  I get angry at the thought.  What a horrific sport.  Feeling pleasure and pride at killing something is disgusting.  Or just not caring at all and being willing to end life without it bothering you is a sign of a horrible person.  I despise trophy/sport hunting, and the people who do it are appalling to me.

The story of Cecil the Lion (wiki article) comes to mind.  I hope the guy who killed the lion has a miserable life.  He deserves it.  I hope Cecil's death makes it more difficult to trophy hunt from now on.

That selfish putrescent sack of feces who killed Cecil isn't alone.  There are whole industries around killing endangered animals.  Elephants and Rhinos hunted for their tusks and horns.  Tigers hunted because of some stupid superstition that parts of them can be used as medicines to help with vigor and strength...

What is wrong with people?  Are we that awful as a species that we're willing to let animals die for our entertainment, greed, or even just our sheer laziness?

Urban sprawl and fossil fuel use, along with the other toxic crap we just keep pumping into the environment... But we have big companies that need millions of dollars for their CEOs.  Why do a good thing making less money when you can do a bad thing to make more money?  Selfish sacks of rotting anus... I loathe those people.  Not only do they pay themselves ridiculous amounts while they screw over their own employees, but the do it at the cost of our world in many cases.  I'm tired of these people being such horrid pungent douche-bags.

We as a species are killing each other; other animals; and the environment itself in the name of greed and selfishness.  I just can't think of a solution.  It seems like the only way we're fixing this is if the people doing the most damage wake the fuck up and stop being terrible people.